Dr. Pete Rustan is director, Mission Support Directorate, of the National Reconnaissance Office. Previously, he served as the NRO director, Ground Enterprise Directorate, and director, Advanced Systems and Technology, for over five years.

Rustan served a 26-year career in the Air Force, where he managed several spacecraft programs that used advanced technologies and implemented a shorter time-to-market philosophy. He was the mission manager for the Clementine spacecraft, which mapped the surface of the moon and obtained more than 1.8 million images using 11 spectral bands. The construction and testing of the Clementine mission took over 22 months from concept to launch and cost only $80 million. The Clementine mission demonstrated for the first time that a fairly sophisticated spacecraft with cameras could be built on a shortened schedule. Of scientific note, Clementine's radar returns suggested the presence of ice at the moon's South Pole.

Rustan has published more than 40 scientific papers in the open literature in spacecraft design, digital signal processing, control system design, biomedical engineering, lightning physics and streamlined program management. He is a dedicated advocate for intelligence community integration, rapid prototyping and selecting the best value proposition to address intelligence needs.

Dr. Rustan is an AIAA fellow and has received many national and international awards, including the Aviation Week and Space Technology Hall of Fame Laureate, the Disney Discovery Award for Technological Innovation, the National Space Club Astronautics Engineer Award, the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, and was featured by Space News in their Top 100 in Space 1989-2004.

Rustan received B.S.E.E and M.S.E.E. degrees from the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1969 and 1970 respectively. He received a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Florida in 1979.